Tag: Kalib Starnes

Today on the CagePotato Roundtable, we’re taking a trip through the magical world of make-believe! Which MMA fighter would you scrap with if reality was no object? Would it be a hated heel? A personal idol? An undersized Japanese lady who you might actually have a puncher’s chance against? Joining us this week is Vince Mancini, the esteemed editor of FilmDrunk.com and occasionalCP commenter. Follow his shit @FilmDrunk, and if you have a topic idea for a future Roundtable column, please send it to tips@cagepotato.com.

Saying that I could fight any MMA fighter implies that I also have the option not to do so, and I would exercise that option. You see, I’m what scientists call “a pussy.” I don’t like my chances in a scrap against anyone, trained or not. In that way I’m kind of like the anti-Krazy Horse: I’ll back down from men, women, children, retarded people…

But if I had to throw down with an MMA fighter of my choosing, it’s going to be Bob Sapp, all day. The reasons are plentiful. As stated earlier, any trained fighter is going to wreck me, badly, so I’m certainly not going to pick someone smaller than me or a female — why give my detractors [friends] more to mock? No, I’m going to pick an intimidating juggernaut, and few fit that bill better than Bob Sapp. If I lose the fight — which is pretty much the only possibility — non-MMA fans [again, my friends] will look at pictures of him, then back at my unimposing frame, and accept the loss as a forgone conclusion while giving me eternal props for climbing into the cage with such a monstrosity.

Actual MMA fans tuning into the fight will already be expecting to see someone turtle-up and play dead before the first punch connects, so they won’t be disappointed if I take a page out of “The Beast’s” own playbook and hit the canvas prematurely. All of Sapp’s recent battles have been farces, so at least no one will be expecting a real fight; I’d hate to disappoint the crowd.

“The only great failure in life is the failure to try.” -Some old wise man, probably with a large beard

Fail is sort of like porn. You can’t really define it properly, but you know it when you see it. And brother, we’ve seen some fail watching our favorite sport. It can happen anytime, from walking out to the ring, to celebrating your victory (see above), and anytime between. We here at CagePotato hold MMA and fighters in our highest regard … but we still like to point and laugh every once in a while. Allow us to present to you our first (in what we assume will be many) installment of MMA Fails.

(Call it a hunch, but something tells us that Kalib isn’t going to be the fan favorite in this one.)

Some people are either just too proud, too embarrassed or too pigheaded to ever admit when they’re wrong.

Although we’re not sure which category Kalib Starnes belongs in, we figured that three years after his career-changing marathon running performance against Nate Quarry at UFC 83, the Surrey, British Columbia-born fighter would finally be able to admit that he should have fought differently that night.

Apparently we were wrong, except we can admit it.

Starnes spoke with Neil Davidson from the Canadian Press ahead of his Ringside middleweight bout with Patrick Cote this weekend at the same arena he was booed out of April 19, 2008 and the former American Top Team fighter said that he wouldn’t change anything about the fight with Quarry even if he could in spite of a deluge of hate mail and threats he has received as a result of his baffling performance.

“I’ve learned a lot from that experience. I think I’ve grown a lot personally and as an athlete. I feel very good. If I could go back and change it, I don’t think I would, you know. I think it’s something that in the end will make me a better, stronger person.”

(Armageddon is fitting name for the promotion, since Kalib Starnes fighting for a title likely signals that the world is coming to an end.)

If you’re jonesing for some MMA to watch this weekend since July is pretty dry for events, and you don’t want to shell out the $29.95 for the Austrailian Impact FC "Island of Misfit Toys" pay-per-view, for the price of a small pizza you can watch a pretty decent card from Victoria, British Columbia, Canada on Saturday night.

Armageddon 3 will feature a middleweight title bout between Nick Hinchliffe and UFC 100-yard dash record holder Kalib Starnes (who, incidentally, gave me the excuse linked here after the day after the bout with Quarry, and later, when he was criticized for his comments, tried to excuse the excuse by wrongfully blasting me on the Sherdog forums for printing comments he says he made "off the record" even though he didn’t bother to mention that they were).

Unfortunately, not every fight can be as competitive as Tank Abbott vs. Butterbean. Two matchups came down the pipe yesterday that probably wouldn’t get approved if we were the ones holding the rubber stamps. First up…

— Wagnney Fabiano vs. Mackens Semerzier: Top-five featherweightFabiano was originally supposed to face Erik Koch at WEC 43 (October 10th, San Antonio), and even then we were like WTF, can this guy get an opponent that’s at least near the top 20? But Koch suffered an injury in training, and coming in to replace him on two weeks notice will be Mackens Semerzier, a 28-year-old U.S. Marine and Miguel Torres student who currently has an MMA record of 3-0; two of his opponents were making their pro debuts when he faced them, and the other had a record of 1-0. In other words, this is about as big a leap in competition as theoretically possible. Could Semerzier shock the world next month? No, absolutely not — his arms are going to end up where his legs used to be. On the bright side, maybe Fabiano can finally score a quick stoppage in the WEC and start earning the fan-respect that he deserves. And speaking of top-ten fighters being given sacrificial lambs…

(UFC 97: Big Building vs. Lightning Bolt. Tickets now available at ConvolutedMetaphor.com.)

Hey, sorry we haven’t done t-shirt giveaways in a few weeks — that’s on us, player. But there’s been a lot of commenter brilliance happening lately, so let’s do this…

Lysol on "Rampage Pleads Guilty to Reckless Driving…": I want to see two guest lectures in the near future: The Importance of Sleep, Nutrition, and Exercise by Rampage Jackson and Black Belt Jiu Jitsu Grappling by Tank Abbott.

Anonymous: crazy ppl ! lesnar will snap mir like a twig, and throw him over to the the moon. this time it is different,lightning doesn’t struck twice at the same place

Anonymous: actually lightning does strike more than once in the same place…step ur game up kid…Empire state building is hit with lightning an average of 25 times a year…stupid kid…

Anonymous: the empire state building is a big building, asshole

Anonymous: mir isnt a lightning bolt

If you happen to be any of these people (except for the multiple Anonymouses, because if you can’t come up with a clever screen-name, you’re ineligible to win) and you want a CagePotato "Hall of Fame" t-shirt, send your name, size, and address to feedback@cagepotato.com. And have a great day!

After the last time we saw Kalib Starnes in the Octagon, running in circles even as Nate Quarry mocked him, I naturally assumed that was it for him. The UFC dropped him almost immediately, as expected, and in my imagination he changed his name and went off to work at a public library somewhere, living in a studio apartment above a pawn shop and eating his microwaved dinners alone each night. Occasionally someone might come into the library and recognize him, asking, ‘Hey, aren’t you that long distance runner guy from the UFC?’ Then Starnes would shake his head and tell them they have him confused for someone else before disappearing to cry in the reference section.

Turns out I’m totally wrong. Starnes is still a pro fighter and he’s even got a fight coming up, against the very respectable “Kolohe” Hose in Hawaii’s Destiny organization. It seems like no matter what he does, though, Starnes will always be remembered for the performance that got him dismissed from the UFC. As he told Sherdog recently, there are still plenty of people who haven’t forgotten:

“People like to be on the side that’s winning, said Starnes. “They’re supportive when you’re winning and critical when you’re losing. I still get some sweet hate mails pretty regularly. There are some gyms with guys who begged me to come in there and train and do seminars before that fight and who wouldn’t return my calls or talk to me afterwards.”

That’s just plain sad. Starnes is right about one thing: people do like to be on the side that’s winning. But even he has got to know that the backlash wasn’t about winning or losing, it was about how he chose to lose and the justification he offered for it afterwards. In case you forgot, he broke his foot early on against Quarry and then opted to avoid fighting for the rest of the bout, explaining that he wasn’t getting paid enough to risk a knockout or more severe injury.

“He’s lost his last two fights now, against Franklin and Anderson Silva, so the UFC’s decision makes sense. No fighter can guarantee winning a fight but you can go into a bout in shape. If you can’t go the distance then you’re not preparing well enough and you’re not taking your job seriously. We work for the UFC and it’s our job to get off our a**es and train and be in shape. That’s what we get paid for and if we don’t do that then we’re not doing our job. That’s the way I look at it.”— Michael Bisping on the recent sacking of Travis Lutter.

“I just decided to make light of the situation and be like, hey man, this is what I’m seeing. I’m seeing a running man. That just came to me out of nowhere. When there were ten seconds left I just said to myself, all right, I’m calling the technique the ‘rock-hammer.’ I don’t know if that name will stick or not.”
— Nate Quarry on the instant-classic ending of his fight with Kalib Starnes.

“I’m just so happy that he would even take the fight against me. I consider him an ‘A’ level fighter, and I consider myself a ‘C’ level fighter, maybe a ‘B’ level because I just beat Houston trying to claw my way up to the top. So for him to take a step down and fight me, I’m greatly appreciative of the guy, who is someone I look up to as one of those top tier fighters.”
— James Irvin on his UFC 85 opponent, Rashad Evans.

“Mentally I think BJ has some quit in him. I’ve seen it, I’ve seen it in the past. If you push him, he’ll quit.”
— Sean Sherk on his UFC 84 grudge match with BJ Penn.

“Now that the K1 thing is out of the way it’s all good baby: all MMA and MMA only. These guys (DREAM) want me to fight Aleksander (Emelianeko) in about three weeks time on May 11th! I was like no way because it’s too short a time with no training. I don’t want to risk fighting like that. But if they compensate me enough for taking that risk then it’s all good and I’ll fight. DREAM’s plan was to see how Fedor (Emelianeko) goes and when and if he wins the DREAM title, and then I will fight him…First time I fought him, my wrestling wasn’t great — actually it was pretty shit but I did alright with him. This time I will be ready.”— Mark Hunt, who may eventually be battling the Emelianenko brothers in DREAM. Hunt was submitted by Fedor via armbar at PRIDE Shockwave on New Year’s Eve 2006.

The Fight Network picks up the blue ribbon for being the first to get Kalib Starnes’s side of the story. In a new interview, Starnes does his best to defend himself and debunk some rumors…

On why he jogged around the Octagon for 15 minutes: “Right now, I have a broken foot [that] I sustained with the first kick I threw in the fight…I can barely walk. [Quarry] totally destroyed my thigh with those kicks. I’m not about to stand there and get smashed to pieces. After I knew my foot was broken, I was trying to back up and work off the jab and keep moving so I didn’t get knocked out.”

On the reports that his performance was a protest: “Any report or rumor that I came on any radio station to comment on the fight or circumstances surrounding the fight or in reference to the UFC or Dana White is completely false.”

On his release from the UFC: “[UFC matchmaker] Joe Silva told me that it usually takes a couple of days for their legal department to complete the paperwork and that he would send me all of the paperwork to indicate that my contract has been dissolved. Later on in the afternoon, after I had spoken to Joe Silva, a story was released by some reporter from Yahoo! in which Dana White said that he had released me from my contract. I received no documentation on that, and it came after I asked to be released…I couldn’t be happier than to be released from the most oppressive contract I’ve ever been under in my life.”

If you told me six months ago that one day we’d publish three posts involving Kalib Starnes within a seven-hour period, I would have thrown my scotch in your face and damned you as one of Satan’s deceitful minions. And yet here we are…

As we all knew he would, Kalib Starnes has been formally let go by the UFC for embarrassing the proud nation of Canada with his relentless backpedaling. And it wasn’t a cordial goodbye, either. Said Dana White: “He just doesn’t belong in the UFC and after his performance the other night, he should consider a new line of work.”

We’re all still scratching our heads at what exactly Starnes’s game plan was on Saturday night. As a couple commenters pointed out in our last post, there’s a report going around claiming that Starnes’s performance was boring on purpose, intended to protest the UFC’s low salaries and failure to pay medical bills; apparently, he didn’t get his broken ribs paid for after his fight with Kendall Grove. The fight with Quarry was the last on his contract, and he wanted to use it to “screw over the UFC.” To which we can only say, buddy, you think you were underpaid before UFC 83? We can’t wait until you find out what the pay’s like for smoker matches up in British Columbia.